


what it means to be strong

by palmsandsunshine



Series: the memories nearly lost - pacrim x daiya [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), ダイヤのA | Daiya no A | Ace of Diamond
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25693552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmsandsunshine/pseuds/palmsandsunshine
Summary: Sawamura Eijun must learn what it means to be strong. With or without his father there at his side.Sawamura Eijun | 1 | November 10, Year 2
Series: the memories nearly lost - pacrim x daiya [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875838
Kudos: 9





	what it means to be strong

_November 10, Year 2._

“You need to get out of the school, Eijun. I’m not kidding.”

He scoffed, turning away from the screaming down the hall and speaking louder into his cellular phone. He stuffed a finger into his left ear when the cries continued. 

Damn teenage girls. Always crying. Even when there were no kaiju, the drama continued. Why did his dad have to send him to a stupid boarding school on the opposite side of the island with these idiots?

“I’m not leaving, Oto-san. Besides, I’m so far away from the attack. There’s no way the kaiju’s going to get anywhere near me,” he rolled his eyes, biting on the skin around his thumb anxiously. The nervous tick started appearing as soon as news of a kaiju attack reached Tokyo. All of Eijun’s classmates were off-put by the fact that the kaiju headed towards Japan instead of some far-away place like San Francisco, and classes for the day had been put on hold while the city awaited instructions from the government.

Eijun felt the nerves for a different reason. His dad worked on a kaiju-combatant base in Chiba, right by the coast to protect Tokyo from any incoming kaiju. He was an engineer for some of the weaponry, used to fiddling around with the engines of the trucks and tractors back when they still had their farm in Nagano… that was before their land had been acquired by the government to build factories and farm food for rations.

His father probably stood on the front-lines—or at least close to it. From the chaos he could hear on the other end of the phone, Eijun could guess things weren’t going too well at the base. 

But Eijun didn’t want to argue about this with him when his allotted five minutes on the landline (the only working phones in Chiba at that time) were slowly ticking past. He glanced at the clock hanging up on the wall. Two thirty-seven. Three more minutes, he mentally counted off.

“Damnit, Eijun!” his father cursed, his voice laced with desperation. Eijun jumped. He rarely ever heard his dad curse. Through the phone speakers, Eijun could make out the yelled demands of her father’s Commanding Officers, of the chaos on the base as the soldiers, engineers, and officers all worked to prepare for the arrival of the kaiju.

“You need to leave and get to a shelter. Please, Ei-chan,” his dad begged just as Eijun ducked into an empty classroom, one of the few whose TVs weren’t on and crowded by students watching the news coverage on the kaiju. “I’ve heard my C.O.s talking. The American Air Force has arrived with aid and they’re planning a nuclear strike. The bomb is taking off in a jet as we speak and it’s going to drop as soon as the kaiju reaches the coastal shelf.”

The kaiju’s armor would make it a sturdy bastard. Eijun knew that from the moment he saw it’s tough, grey-ish body armor littered with radioactive green streaks. It looked nothing like Trespasser and a lot like a derpy, clumsy Godzilla. Yet, in the way it plowed through aircraft carriers and churned up waves in the deep ocean, it was incredibly reminiscent of the former San Fransican kaiju. They named the kaiju Kuchiku: “destroyer”.

Kuchiku’s wake in the ocean left a path laced with traces of kaiju blue that were leaking out of it’s minimal wounds from the military’s weapons. Eijun knew the cleanup—and even just killing the damn beast—would take just as long as Trespasser’s did. 

Eijun wished his dad wouldn’t have to stay in Chiba for too long after the kaiju attack. Being away from him for too long felt like being lost at sea.

He slumped down into an empty desk chair, the energy suddenly zapped from his body. He pulled off one of his shoes and rubbed the aching sole of his foot, exhausted from running around like a headless chicken as soon as the kaiju started heading straight for Japan.

“What about you? Shouldn’t you have been sent away already?”

The silence was enough of an answer for Eijun.

“Oto-san,” he sat up in the chair, his attention returned to the conversation and away from his aching foot. “Don’t tell me you’re not being evacuated.”

“We only had a few helicopters and airplanes leave after the initial attack on Kuchiku. The cargo planes took as many personnel as possible. The helicopters are out evacuating some of the shelters that don't have radiation shielding here in Chiba.”

“And you?” The question he feared the answer to, yet needed so desperately.

His father took a deep breath before answering, his words spoken low and carefully; his voice was measured in a way that Eijun had never heard before. “There wasn’t enough space for everyone, and there wasn’t enough time or fuel for the planes to come back. About a hundred had to stay behind. I was one of the first to volunteer.”

Eijun let the words sink in, betrayal panging in his chest before he raised his voice at his father—one of the few times he ever disrespected him.

“How could you?!”

“Ei, some of my coworkers have kids. Young kids. Kids that need them—“

“ _ I _ need you!” he cut him off. Ever since Mom and Grandpa died a few years ago after one of the first kaiju attacks, it's been the two of them together. That was, of course, Eijun accepted a scholarship to a fancy private school in Tokyo and they’ve been kept apart most of the year since he started.

“...you don’t need me anymore, Eijun.” He could almost hear the fond smile in his dad’s voice.

“Oto-san...”

“My five minutes are almost up. You should be safe from the radiation in the Tokyo shelters—make sure you know it’s safe to come outside before you leave. You know the pin to my bank account. Buy whatever you need, but be smart. You’re not good at math and English, but you’ve always known what to do, Ei-chan.”

The haze in Eijun’s mind cleared up a little.

“Dad— Y-You can’t seriously—”

His words and thoughts were losing coherency. The screams from outside the classroom were suddenly all too loud and echoed through his mind in sharp bursts of pain. The chaos from Chiba seemed to reverberate in Tokyo, even though the cities were miles apart. A tsunami wave of emotions swept over Eijun, and he found himself tumbling and tossed through the water—wanting to swim up for air but not knowing which direction to go. 

His heart was icy blue with the sadness of losing another loved one. His fingers were red-hot with the energy and anger of betrayal spreading through his blood alongside the adrenaline. And in his stomach, he felt the betrayal, boiling black and green like a witch’s cauldron.

How could he do this to him?

“Eijun. Please don’t spend the rest of your life resenting my decision.”

His dad always did seem to know what he was feeling.

“You promised me. You promised you wouldn’t leave like Mom and Grandpa did!”

“Keep studying, Ei-chan,” his father continued despite his desperate protests, his voice wavering at the ends of his words. “You have a few more months of middle school. Become a pro baseball player, live out your dreams. You have the talent for it. In a world like this, dreams are the only true agency we have over ourselves.”

“Dad—”

“I won’t be there to give any potential suitors the shovel talk, so make sure to kick them all in the ass for me, okay? Any boy who treats you badly is not worth your time!”

He couldn’t help himself. Eijun managed a laugh through the tears and sobs and silence. The world outside his isolated classroom and on the other end of the phone seemed to be quieting down, all falling into a silence to mourn a fallen soldier. Another brave man of the hundreds of thousands lost to the kaiju.

How many more lives had to be lost before the kaiju would be put to an end?

His dad’s breath hitched, a gentle breath that was almost lost against the static of the phone. “God, Ei-chan. You have your mother’s laugh.”

“I know,” he sniffled, using the sleeve of his sweater to wipe his nose. “You told me every day when you came to visit last month.”

“I just want you to know, Eijun…”

He glanced at the time on the clock. Two forty.

His dad was probably only allowed a few more seconds on the phone before another person who volunteered to stay behind would get their allotted five minutes. 

Five whole minutes with a loved one. How do you say goodbye to your family in only five minutes? Suddenly, Eijun regretted the first three minutes of arguing with his father. For once in his life, couldn’t he shut up and listen? There was only one thing to say.

“Yes?”

“I love you. And I’m so proud of you. So, so proud. You’re the strongest boy I know, Eijun.”

“I-I love you too, Dad.”

The dial tone sounded like a mourning cry in Eijun’s ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm still deciding what pairings to use... hmm


End file.
